As a slag heap, the result of strip mining, creeps closer to his house in the Ohio hills, fifteen-year-old M. C. is torn between trying to get his family away and fighting for the home they love.

After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.

Ten-year-old Rupert, from a very large, very poor family, accidently becomes part of an eccentric rich family's life beginning at Christmas, and soon sees that wealth is not everything.

In 1970s Ohio, Lenny and her younger brother, Davey, who suffers from a rare form of gigantism, cope with his declining health by poring over each installment of Burrell's Build-It-at-Home Encyclopedia Set.

In the wake of his father's sudden death, twelve-year-old Finn feels he is becoming invisible as his hair and skin become whiter by the day, and so he writes and illustrates a book to try to understand what is happening and to hold on to himself and his father.